Course Update – July
Published on 25th June 2024 in Course News
Course Report
The rainfall we were in desperate need of has well and truly arrived and packing a punch with the intensity of some of the falls recorded requiring clean up and bunker repairs. For the record May produced 215m and to June to date we are sitting on 137mm .
Greens/Poa Treatment
The 1st application of Poa Cure was applied this week (17th June) with a follow up application due in 4 weeks time. Greens 1,2,4,6,12,13,16, top putter & chipping green. The bottom putter was also sprayed as a trial to see the effect and result of converting a high % green back to bent – this will be useful and give us an understanding of what to expect if we were to start treating all greens the following winter.
After the initial treatment we are expecting yellowing of the poa to occur approx. 7-10 days. Due to the low populations in both the 8th & 13th greens these greens were treatment via dabbing with a weed brush. These greens were first treated on the 27th of May and are already showing positive signs. A second treatment occurred on the 18th June.
The greens themselves are holding up well with plenty off grass on them and fairly healthy. We recently gave the greens their first aeration post SWO using an 8mm solid tine to a depth of 200mm. The next planned aeration will take place on the 22nd July directly after we host the Div 1 pennants.
Kikuyu Program
The 1st application of 3 will take place on 15th July. Fairways 3,4,5,7,9,11,14,15,16,17,18 will be boomed sprayed whilst fairways 1,2,6,8,10,12,13 will be spot sprayed due to manageable levels of kikuyu and allowing us to apply that saved chemical out into roughs.
Staff
Over winter we have a number of staff away using annual leave – unfortunately we don’t get the opportunity over the warmer months to take leave, so we do tend to operate on a skeleton crew for parts of the winter. Des Allen is currently on 3 weeks leave and I will also be away for 3 weeks starting 22nd June.
Machinery
Ongoing repairs to machinery continually eat into our budget. We have had to replace the computer on our 5800 sprayer – this will set us back approx. 6k.
Irrigation
The dams had their annual clean out at the beginning of June, it’s a very messy job but Dane and Des Allen seemed to enjoy themselves way too much and have already booked themselves in again for next year.
Newground Irrigation were down to pull the bore on the 12th of June, Initial inspection of the pump looked to be in a poor worn condition and are currently awaiting the inspection report. The pump itself is an original from when the club used to pump out of the old bore hole between 18 tee and 11 green. (pre 2003) This pump had been altered in the early days to be reused in our existing bore hole to save the club a considerable amount of money, rough age of this pump would be in excess of 30-35years.
Turf Nursery
Work has commenced on our new turf nursey next to the new shed. Minor clearing has started with irrigation due to go in once I have returned from Annual leave with an estimated planting time early September. Once operational this nursery will save the club a considerable amount of money when undertaking projects. This nursery will mainly consist of wintergreen (fairways) Santa Ana (tee’s) along with some trial plots of different warm season greens grade grasses. Screen planting around the perimeter has been completed and will benefit from the added irrigation.
